While the United States Armed Forces (private mercenaries) are in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq, the Philippines and west Africa defending “all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world,” Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army, resigns the day after he fired Major General George W. Weightman, Commander Walter Reed Army Medical Center, for unsanitary conditions at the hospital, which included: black mold growing in many corners, cockroach and rodent infested wards, no heat and/or water in some of the buildings, at least one unmonitored entrance, and injured Soldiers ordered to stand guard details to achieve a minimum level of security.  Harvey brought in Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, Surgeon General of the U.s. Army, Weightman’s predecessor six months previous, to turn the hospital around.  But Kiley is also fired by Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, as Harvey is resigning.

Postscript: Kiley resigned from the U.s. Army ten days later.

Questions:

• If the U.s. Armed Forces allows unsanitary conditions to persist in its hospitals, why would advocates of national health care believe a Federal takeover would improve the quality of health care for U.s.  subject/enemy/citizens?
• Is this what health care is going to be like after the Federal government is responsible for administering it?

       [added 3/15/2024] Thanks to Gene Burns for this entry.

       The libertarian alternative is first of all a non-interventionist foreign policy that will prevent most deaths and injuries; failing that injured service people, on being released from active duty should be given medical payment vouchers to be used by the veteran to obtain medical care from any physician or hospital of the veteran’s choice.  Or we the government could pay the few troops required by a humble, polite, foreign policy enough so that the members of the armed forces could buy appropriate high risk death and dismemberment insurance coverage from their carrier of choice.  The entire VA structure should be dismantled, saving billions of dollars.  –– JL